Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, is "Big Beautiful Day”, by PWR BTTM, from their forthcoming album, Pageant, due May 12th on Polyvinyl Records.
PWR BTTM - Big Beautiful Day (MP3)PWR BTTM’s glitterbash exploration of queer and femme themes over guitar godhood has gone from DIY spaces to NPR’s Tiny Desk and last year's colorful KEXP live session. America’s been in the loop of the drag show-evocative instrument-switching glory of Liv Bruce and Ben Hopkins' live act since the release of the band’s 2015 garage punky Ugly Cherries. Two years later, we’re seeing PWR BTTM as a queer punk household name, thanks to two new singles with accompanying videos, and a multi-national tour that’s already sold out their European dates.
From the new LP, "Big Beautiful Day" sees lo-fi pop guitar lines roll over Liv’s roiling drum parts while the lyrics chronicle the fixtures and mentality behind the cis-male habit of one downing others to save their own fragile self-perception and, more so, what the young thinking cutie can do to not let this bring them down. The single comes off the heels of Pageant’s first single, “Please Answer My Text,” wherein the duo's narrative strength, as proved in their freshman tracks like “C U Around” and “Dairy Queen”, is confirmed anew.
Tickets are still available for the band's upcoming tour, and if you’re around the Seattle, you can still snag a ticket to see them at Neumos on July 19th with fellow NYC art rock outfit T-Rexstacy and our own local DIY fixture Iji. That's the bill of the decade right there, folks. Before that, you can pick up PWR BTTM's Pageant when it comes out May 12th on Polyvinyl. and right now, you can get a whiff of PWR BTTM's live power and find more tour dates at their website and Facebook page and chase all that down with Liv Bruce’s aesthetized angst in the “Answer My Text” video below.
Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJ’s think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Mid…
